Archive for November, 2018

The US state of Ohio has been accepting tax payments in Bitcoin since this week. Companies can register for the service via an online platform and then pay a variety of taxes with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin trader from San Francisco then converts the payments into US dollars

The squirrel feeds itself laboriously. This phrase also applies to the Bitcoin trader adoption, because the path from asset class to means of payment is long. Nevertheless, the message about the Bitcoin trader acceptance for the settlement of tax debts in the US state of Ohio in stormy crypto times is good news.

But one thing at a time. As the Wall Street Journal reports (Attention Paywall), citizens of the U.S. state of Ohio will soon be able to pay a variety of different taxes in Bitcoin. These include VAT, payroll taxes and certain taxes on consumer goods such as gasoline and cigarettes.

Until now, only companies have been able to pay their taxes in Bitcoin. They must register via the ohiocrypto.com website. However, according to the report, the state plans to expand its tax system to include taxable private individuals in the medium term.

Crypto friend Mandel as crypto trader

The driving force behind the crypto trader project was Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. Here is the review by onlinebetrug. The Republican is considered a strong proponent of crypto currencies: “For me, Bitcoin is a legitimate form of money, the politician told the Wall Street Journal.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the agency identifies six reasons why companies should take advantage of the new offer: The speed of payment processing, low fees, blockchain tracking, greater transparency, a high level of payment flow security, and the ability to initiate mobile payments.

According to Mandel, the online service will be open from the beginning of this week:

“From the beginning of this week, companies in Ohio will be able to register on ohiocrypto.com and pay various taxes with Bitcoin. At some point, the service will be extended to private individuals.”

In collaboration with Bitpay
However, the state relies on the payment provider Bitpay for payment processing. The San Francisco-based company will soon convert the Bitcoin into US dollars. This step is necessary because the US dollar is the only legal tender in the country.

Even if the taxes are not booked in the form of Bitcoin, the step is a clear signal from the Ohio administration to be positive about crypto currencies.

You’ve just heard about Bitcoins and you’ve heard that many have already made it to millionaire status with Bitcoins? Your question might be: “Do I still have the possibility or has the Bitcoin boat already passed? Unfortunately this question is not so easy to answer.

Can you still make millions with Bitcoin code?

Possibly. Has the Bitcoin code boat sailed off? Certainly not. The Bitcoin code concept is still very new. The Bitcoin has only been around for five years and is still trying to gain a foothold and the price is still very unstable. On top of that, some business failures have left many a Bitcoiner on the sidelines.

There are many people who have earned a lot of money with the Bitcoin, they invested in Bitcoin at the beginning and see the price only rising since then.

Those who invested in Bitcoin a good two years ago, when the price was around $5, currently (current Bitcoin price 483 dollars) have an incredible return of 9.560%. To get the same return in the next 2 years, the Bitcoin price would have to rise from 483 dollars to 46,500 dollars.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Actually, that’s not so far-fetched, many people think.

Bullish Bitcoin code

There are some many bullish Bitcoin code predictions from recognized personalities who are very positive. Ex Facebook executive Chamth Palihapitiya, predicted last May on Bloomberg that every single Bitcoin has the potential to rise to $400,000 should the Bitcoin establish itself as a useful currency reported by: onlinebetrug.de

The Winkelvoss twins (known as the allegedly true inventors of Facebook) said in November that the price could increase a hundredfold with a market volume of $400 billion (currently $5.8 billion).

A few weeks later, Wall Street analysts Gil Luria and Aaron Turner said the Bitcoin price could reach $100,000.

Politician and financial expert Max Kaiser has been advocating the Bitcoin for years, but in December he said it won’t be long before the price reaches $5,000.

In a Coindesk survey in January, 56% of respondents believed that the Bitcoin price had already reached the $10,000 mark this year. In a separate survey, 42% of mostly young respondents believed Bitcoin would establish itself as a stable currency and 30% said it was safer to invest in Bitcoin or Bitcoin Mining than in stocks.

Even if it seems as if there are only optimists out there who hang the Bitcoin flag high on the top, there are also endless pessimists on the other side who claim the Bitcoin will not be stable in the future.

Bearish naysayers
Warren Buffet claimed in a CNBC interview that the Bitcoin was a waste of time.

“Stay away from the Bitcoin. The Bitcoin is basically a mirage,” he said, adding, “the idea that the Bitcoin has immense value is a joke.”

American economist Paul Krugman made a similar statement in the New York Times last December (Bitcoin is Evil). He said he wasn’t convinced that Bitcoin would be recognised as a currency and he didn’t believe it would be worth anything in the long run.

Sir Bob Geldorf said shortly thereafter the Bitcoin will simply not work. Max Kaiser replied that the singers’ statements should not be paid attention to. Asking them for their opinion would be a worthless exercise. This could be compared to asking “a blind person for an opinion about a gymnast”.

HOME INVEST ICO ICO: WAVES, THE DECENTRALIZED FINANCIAL PLATFORM, LAUNCHES ITS CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN
The digital currency platform aims to solve the most common problems of the crypto currency scene and to tackle the mass market.

WAVES, a versatile platform that supports the issuance of digital assets, will bring the benefits of blockchain technology to the emerging crowdfunding scene, collateral trading and money transfers.

The platform is particularly focused on the integration of the major currencies through legally compliant currency interfaces in the form of existing companies. The currencies are traded on the platform as digital investments and thus provide direct access to them. Neither the other risk of trading via an Internet exchange nor the currency risk is present. Furthermore, WAVES will represent an alternative in the course of the shift to corporate blockchains: A blockchain is designed for direct use by companies with the ability to meet any KYC/AML requirement. There will also be the option of anonymity – a must for any serious trading platform.

Decentralized Bitcoin profit

Initially, WAVES will focus on some key functions: https://www.geldplus.net/en/bitcoin-profit-review/ A decentralised Bitcoin profit investment exchange will enable crowdfunding and the trading of financial instruments on the blockchain. Right from the start, users will have the opportunity to trade investments against investments. This also means that any currency or investment can be used to pay the network fees.

WAVES is designed so that the ‘Coloured Coins’ concept can reach its full potential,’ says Sasha Ivanov, founder of the platform and best connected in the digital currency scene through his own stock exchange and other projects. One of the first applications we want to make possible right from the start is a kind of decentralized kick-start – any person can raise funds for their project, where investors are protected by WAVES’ integrated reputation system and additionally have the opportunity to trade their shares in a project directly on the built-in exchange. A mechanism will also be provided to automatically return donated funds if certain milestones are not met.’.

Two-tier architecture of the Bitcoin profit

WAVES’s architecture aims at a simple, intuitive handling – more about this later in this review. The network is built on the Scorex platform. The Scorex platform uses an approach that requires the current Bitcoin profit network status for verification instead of the full transaction list.

WAVES will use a combination of different proof-of-stake mechanisms called ‘Leased PoS (LPoS)’, which allows the Lite client to verify the blockchain through account balances and leaves the generation of blocks to the full nodes. This two-tier architecture allows an easy to set up Lite client for the end user. The user interface will be similar to the popular online banking platforms, creating a flat learning curve.

The desire to keep usability as high as possible is also reflected in the use of plug-ins for new transaction types. Other platforms program these into the core, which leads to regular ‘hard forks’. “This approach allows any programmer to develop a new transaction type,” comments Ivanov. “Each interface can forward any transaction, whether the required plug-in is installed or not. This leads to an Appstore-like ecosystem combined with unprecedented flexibility.

HOME INVEST MARKETS BITCOIN FOR ALL – ARE CRYPTO FUNDS THE SOLUTION?
Interest in Bitcoin, crypto currencies and financial products that map or invest in them continues to grow. In many places, on the other hand, the voices after regulation and consumer protection regarding crypto currencies are becoming louder and louder. Regulated crypto funds can certainly also lower the entry hurdle for newcomers.

BTC-ECHO has already reported several times on regulated crypto funds. These include Blockwall, Postera and BITREAL.

Status quo of the Bitcoin formula

If you take a look behind the review of onlinebetrug, however, you will see that these Bitcoin formula funds are far from suitable for the masses:

Minimum investment unattainable for small investors
The Postera Fund – Crypto 1 has the lowest entry hurdle with a minimum investment of 50.000 Euro. At first glance, EUR 50,000 may not sound like a considerable sum. If, however, one considers the fact that an investment portfolio should always have sufficient risk diversification, then it is no longer a question of a small investment capital, which a potential investor should hold. Based on the minimum deposit, these regulated crypto funds are primarily aimed at institutional investors.

Low competition – high fees
The market is only responding to the demand for regulated crypto funds. As a result, there are still too few of them and there is no competition. As a result, there is little or no competition and the companies can afford high management fees and closing fees. A closer look at the Postera Fund – Crypto 1 reveals that an issue premium of three percent compared to equity funds does not attract too much attention. Even a management fee of 1.1 percent does not yet have a hard impact. What is more important, however, is a performance fee of 20 percent, which is deducted after a hurdle rate of 6 percent and a new all-time high (high water mark). Here, the company actually diverts one fifth of its profits.

Existing funds uninteresting for private Bitcoin trader investors

For cost reasons and due to high minimum Bitcoin trader investments, the existing crypto funds are still far from becoming interesting for a private investor: https://www.forexaktuell.com/en/bitcoin-trader-scam/. The Postera Fund – Crypto 1, as well as the other mentioned funds, are specifically designed as alternative investment funds (special funds) for institutional investors and are not distributed to private investors in the first place.

So let us come back to the detailed question of crypto funds, which are intended to protect consumers through existing regulation. In principle it is to be clarified here, how one can produce consumer protection at all.

Consumer protection – how is it really done?
Many regulations want to prevent consumers from losing money through speculative transactions. However, if you look at the big picture, you have to realize that returns are generated by assuming risk or volatility. Consumer protection does not mean protecting the investor from returns. In order to be able to earn a return on investment in the financial or crypto markets, one must practice assuming a certain risk. One can learn this only, while one acquires appropriate products and grows at it.

How can we protect the consumer? In my opinion, three essential steps are needed here:

Economic education
The first step must be to provide clear and differentiated information and general economic education. Regulatory authorities should refrain from demonising the blockchain or crypto currencies as a whole or “warning” consumers against them and thus preventing them from dealing with them. Rather, they should make well-founded sources of knowledge available – this can also happen in the form of links to reputable and tested sources. Another possibility is to make knowledge available in a simple language, such as the Bundesbank does on various topics. This would also help to avoid or reduce information asymmetries that are already being complained about. This would make it easier to get to grips with a particular topic. Consumers can judge better whether they would like to carry the respective risk and invest money or not, after they have obtained an overview of the material.

Availability of entry-level products
Once a potential investor has decided on an investment, the second step should be to provide products that are suitable for beginners. These products must meet a number of conditions.

The Finnish telecommunications group Nokia is now also jumping on the blockchain train. They are currently looking for solutions to store data from the healthcare sector. In cooperation with the OP Financial Group, the Finns have launched a pilot project to store movement and health profiles securely, anonymously and decentrally.

Health data is a sensitive issue. While patient-related information circulates between doctors and health insurance companies, it is constantly exposed to a certain level of publicity. At the same time, however, they also contain patients’ personal information on the course and history of their illness. This (meta) data also includes data that can be captured via mobile devices. Fitness apps record how much we walk, sweat and sleep. This results in personality profiles that are on the one hand very useful when evaluated. On the other hand, however, they are personal and worth protecting.

Nokia wants to create trust with the Bitcoin news

Nokia is now developing a blockchain solution to explore this gap between the public and private Bitcoin news spheres as efficiently as possible. According to a review about Bitcoin news, they started their project together with the OP Financial Group. Currently, 100 participants are testing ways to best store and share health data while protecting privacy.

The technology allows the company, which is particularly well known for its mobile phones, to maintain an overview of the collected data. At the same time, the blockchain allows only verified parties to access the data. In their statement they state:

“Although the potential of interconnected health data is widely acknowledged, it is often not fully exploited. This happens precisely for reasons of authenticity, availability and privacy. Trust is an important requirement that health data can provide the greatest benefit to individuals, families and our global society”.

In order to create trust, blockchain technology is particularly useful in relation to data. First and foremost, with its decentralization, it offers protection against administration and possible misuse by corporations. The use of Smart Contracts can also help to protect the data. In the end, individual users can retain more control over their data than is the case with a centralized, institutional approach.

To this end, all data provided by the users of the Bitcoin news technology is encrypted

In the end, access only has a verified authority, in this case the Bitcoin news Financial Group. Nokia will then also verify the data. What they ultimately evaluate is only the relevant (meta) data, without any direct reference to the Bitcoin news.

Kristian Luoma, head of OP, is happy about this cooperation:

“We are very happy about the cooperation with Nokia. It’s great to see how the blockchain is applied in a field that needs trust […]. This pilot project is an example of the technologies we will use in the future in innovative collaboration to create value”.

In the test program, they use portable devices, among other things, to record the number of steps per day and the amount of sleep. This data is then stored on the blockchain. The developers then compare the results with the fitness goals of the users. The users who get closer to their goal and use the program will then receive digital loyalty points.

According to Nokia, the pilot project aims to provide insights and solutions to global health issues. A rapprochement between blockchain and healthcare already exists in the USA. There, however, the focus is more on the handling of patient files. The advantages of this technology have been recognized in the area of data backup in particular.